Vermont takes symbolic stand with first fracking ban

The following post was written by John Stodder, The Dolan Company National Affairs Correspondent. Dolan is the parent company of Michigan Lawyers Weekly.
If the much-hyped dream of U.S. energy independence must involve hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) to extract natural gas from shale deposits deep underneath the surface of the earth, the State ofVermont ...

About Gary Gosselin

One comment

Symbolic or not (Vermont may have “natural” gas underneath some of its land, especially in the southwestern part of the state), this act displays prudence and responsibility on the part of the state’s lawmakers, who have apparently been paying attention to the grave stories now legion about the environmental and health detrimental effects of fracking — unlike lawmakers in other states.

And they’ve apparently also recognized that the fracked gas is being shipped abroad to the highest bidders, so this is hardly the “patriotic” anti-NIMBY story we’re being told by the fracking industry. And they see that that the industrialization of rural and wild landscapes is happening at breakneck speed in places like Pennsylvania; that the entire cradle-to-grave process of fracking is energy consumptive and contributes a huge amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, hastening climate change and the resulting weather catastrophes that have become the new “normal”; that the economic “boom” leads inevitably to a “bust”; that naturally occurring radioactive materials com eo the surface in this process and are neither being monitored nor sequestered; that fracking has much to do with the frequent occurrence of earthquakes in areas where it’s taking place; that there are not enough places to store the millions and millions and millions of gallons of toxic waste created in the processs; and that communities and famiies, as well as the ground beneath us, are being fractured.

So, hats off to Vermont’s intelligent, caring, wise, and foresighted lawmakers. It’s time MIchigan’s, New York’s, Ohio’s, Pennsylvania’s, West Virginia’s, Wyoming’s, Texas’s, Colorado’s, and so many other states’ legislators decided to follow suit. But perhaps they’re just too deep in the pockets of industry to remember their oaths of office.